Sad News

Two years ago, as their other elderly dogs were entering their final days, my parents took on a 7 year old Border Collie called Ben. Ben had not had a happy or very settled life and had spent years being shuttled between owners, or left in a house all day long while his family were working.

It is impossible to tell but judging by his demeanor when he first arrived, he must have been mistreated at some stage as he would cower when voices were raised, even if in joy and happiness.

Over the two years he was with them he became less scatty and seemed more relaxed. I don't know if it is physically possible for a dog to frown, but his face, which was normally set in this slightly surprised and intense scowl, slowly became more friendly. He also gained more confidence as each of the other older dogs died.

One thing that never changed was Ben's fear of loud noises. At the beginning of the fireworks season (late August in the UK) the nightly bangs and whistles from fireworks being set-off in the area, would turn Ben into a quivering mass of fur and he would seek refuge in the cupboard under the stairs. As the intensity rose towards November 5th he would take to his hideout as soon as the daylight began to fade. It was all my parents could do to coax Ben out of the cupboard for his dinner. As a result most of November was not a happy time for Ben.

Suddenly, yesterday afternoon, Ben became very disturbed. He left his below-stairs retreat and began to prowl the house, avoiding any room which my parents were occupying. He refused to eat and hid in corners and under furniture. On one attempt to feed Ben my father sustained a bite on the leg for his trouble.

This morning Ben became vicious and my parents decided there was nothing more they could do for him. They managed to lure Ben into the car with a trail of cold meat. They then drove to the vet and after much snarling and snapping he was led away with the use of a pole with a noose at the end. The vet confirmed that Ben should now be considered a dangerous dog and as such he was put to sleep.

It is very sad when you have to destroy any pet, but especially so when a change or illness comes over them so suddenly. The vet has postulated that Ben was probably suffering from a brain tumor or some other mental disturbance.

My parents house is now quiet. It is the first time in 30 years that there hasn't been a dog in the house somewhere.

Top of the Summit

I am here attending an invitation only meeting of the top 100 decision makers for a new and exciting sector of the IT industry.

In an atmosphere reminiscent of the dot com boom, many of the businesses active in this sector are venture funded, involved in a land-grab style business model, and all working at a significant loss for the promise of megabucks sometime in the future.

Alongside the start-up organisations are the traditional large players who seem to see their dominance of other areas of IT as giving them a divine right to throw their weight around, set the agenda, and control the value chain - how wrong they are!

The structure of the day is a series of plenary presentations interspersed with time for one to one networking meetings, and it is interesting to spot the common threads in all events of this type.

1) All presentations include a statement where the delivering organisations claims to be the leader in their space. In order to make this claim some of them come up with some extremely contrived and niche definitions of their space - almost to the point where no-one really cares if they are leading or not.

2) In order to prove how well connected, respected, trusted they are, all organisations show a slide full of the logos of their customer/investor/partner/supplier community. This is intended to add weight and credibility except that the collection of logos is quite small and extremely repetitive between presentations proving only that a lot of people are laying off their bets on the success of any particular player.

3) All future projections are displayed on a graph which has a line that rises satisfyingly from bottom left to top right. However no actual figures are quoted and the only language used to describe performance is "encouraging", "ahead of plan", "better than we hoped" or "too early to be useful". Hmmm.

4) Participants are obligingly conforming to their national stereotypes; the Swiss are claiming accuracy as well as starting and finishing their presentations exactly on time; the Germans are claiming technical superiority and displaying aggression in European market dominance, the French have a lot of beautiful and sophisticated ideas which have no realistic implementation plan in evidence; the Chinese are achieving success from a totally unique approach which no-one else can quite understand but are sure would never work outside China, the English have some great technology but have no real idea how to sell it; and the Americans (no doubt boosted by the proximity of the Chief) are doing all this stuff already and are leading the world, but using a definition of "world" which, like the World Series, extends only to the 52 States within the safe confines of America.

5) All multi-media presentations have to be restarted 10 seconds in after it is realised that the sound cable was plugged into the wrong socket.

6) There is a fight by PC users (greater than 75% of the audience) for the few power outlets dotted around the room.

7) The majority of those using their PCs are not doing so to take notes, but in order to read email and write blog entries - oops!

So the industry feels itself sufficiently well formed to hold a Summit. The only problem is, where do you go once you have reached the summit?

F***ing Blogger

I have just spent the best part of an hour writing a blog entry of some length and complexity to catch up on a week of unblogging.

As soon as I hit the Post button Blogger decided to log me out and request my password again. Result - complete loss of blog entry.

As a result I just had a lengthy Lyle-type sweary moment.

Ancient Remedies

Having become sick (literally) and tired of my continuing digestive problems, and finding the conventional medicine approach slow and ineffective, I decided on the spur of the moment to seek alternative advice.

While shopping in town the other day I dropped into a Chinese Herbalist shop. After a free, 15 minute consultation which seemed mainly to involve holding my wrists and taking my pulse whilst asking me questions which were of an uncomfortably personal nature for giving a candid reply on an open and crowded shop floor, I was prescribed a remedy.

Having got the remedy home I unwrapped £57 worth of what can best be described as woodland floor-sweepings. These dried twigs and seeds were to be boiled for 30 minutes and the resulting "tea" drunk twice a day for seven days.

The effect of the first dose was almost immediate and extremely dramatic. Those of you familiar with the old Real Ale joke about the feeling that the bottom is falling out of your world (and its converse) will get some idea of what the following 36 hours were like for me.

After 3 days of not being able to stray more than a rapid and knock-kneed dash from a bathroom, and the need to keep the windows open and the extractor fans on throughout the house in order to make it habitable for others I decided to stop the medication. It took a further day for the turmoil to subside.

Net result is that an ailment which had troubled me for two weeks was cleared in an extremely short time and using only natural elements. So maybe the old ways are the best after all.

Royal Scandals Now Annual

Oh silly, silly me. I don't know how I could have done it, but it appears I have confused this November's Royal scandal implicating Prince Charles, and thus protected with a Court granted libel injunction with last November's Royal scandal implicating Prince Charles, which was similarly protected with a Court granted libel injunction.

I wonder if this is going to be an annual event which will become part of the Royal calendar. We can expect to see it featured in the Times Court Circular.

1st November 200? - Clarence House
8 a.m. According to custom HRH Prince Charles will loiter outside the High Court today to be first inline to file an injunction when the Grauniad or the Daily Male receive unfounded allegations from current or recently retired and fired loyal royal servants.

9 a.m. HM Queen Elizabeth will be unavailable for comment while she undergoes a brief and unexplainable attack of amnesia about conversations she may, or may not, have had with the protagonists of her own household

12 mid-day. HRH Prince Phillip, the Duke of Effing Edinburgh will attend an international business event where he will make some choice remarks about foreigners showing that he truly is of a different age, class and planet to the rest of humanity

9 p.m. Royal Valet to receive the Order of the Pink Submarine (hesitantly at first) for services rendered beyond the call of duty.

For those who were ill-informed by my earlier post, Simon Perry has been brave enough to defy the courts and is perpetuating Popbitch's reporting of the allegations.

Right Royal Rumour Row

The news today has been full of the fact that Prince Charles is denying a serious allegation. The irony of this is that the UK press are not allowed to report the details of that allegation owing to a Court Libel Injunction. But is it still in place? This story would seem to suggest not.

Thankfully we have the Internet and the socially responsible CNN which can always be relied upon to spill the beans.

Icky-Poo

I am ill, mwaaa, grumble, grumble.

My internal chemistry set continues to be in disarray a full two weeks after it first began giving me gyp. When it first happened I thought it was something that would pass in 24 hours or so, as is usually the case. Now, two weeks later I am beginning to suspect something more substantial is wrong and I am resisting the urge to do some self diagnosis using online sites. If there any doctors out there that have a clue, please drop your no-obligation diagnosis in my comments box.

I have been eating very gingerly since last Friday, gradually eliminating everything which might be causing problems. First thing to go was everything dairy, but that might have something to do with the fact that I have convinced myself that it was a bad yogurt that started the problem a couple of weeks ago. Eventually all that was left in my diet was plain brown bread and cups of black tea.

I thought I was getting better and that things were quietning down. So, today, feeling more settled, I ventured something a bit more substantial and hot. However my light lunch of baked potato and clear soup was forcibly rejected within 30 minutes. I have spent the rest of the day sipping water with no appetite for anything.

Tomorrow night we are having a surprise family dinner for my mother's birthday and I am supposed to be doing some of the catering. I am not sure if I really should be preparing food for others just now but no-one else is going to do it so I will have to take the risk, but just make sure I have washed my hands thoroughly before I touch anything.

Everything that has a beginning......

It is going to be really hard to write about the third film in the Matrix trilogy without giving away the story or details like who gets killed, who loses one of their five senses, who gets killed and comes back to life (again) and who does that magic Michael Jackson thing of morphing into a cat.

The film jumps right in where the last one trailed off. So if you can't remember exactly what happened it might be worth seeing Reloaded on DVD a day or so before you go. I wish I had.

Where "Reloaded" looked a lot like an advert for a Playstation game and featured a succession of set pieces which seemed to go on for hours, "Revolutions" is better crafted, included lots of dialogue, a few laughs and some human relationship stories. Unfortunately the latter competed with Independence Day for general mawkishness and incredulity. The best example (which doesn't give too much away) is the underage spotty youth who persuades the hard-bitten general that he has to fight - and then not only goes on to fire the critical shot but is also the person who assumes the role of Neville Chamberlain. (How many of my American readers will get that reference?)

I wonder why it is that this series of films, with a presumably Global audience, is couched so firmly in a US metaphor? This becomes so very evident in this episode where the US term "goddamn" is so over used it begins to sound stupid and as if the script editor is making the point that s/he would have far preferred to insert some other profanities but was mindful of the need to secure a 15 rating.

Has anyone else who has seen it noticed that there is a design flaw in the APU? Lyle has a picture one on his site and so I will borrow a link. Look carefully it is totally impossible for the bullets, loaded into the devices central body, to reach the guns at the end of each arm. There is no continuous channel for them to pass through. Once I noticed this I totally failed to enjoy the rest sequence because I was worrying about this issue. What does that say about me?

Are there lessons to be drawn from this film? It is an allegory for life, spirituality and faith? I know there is an awful lot of analysis and punditry which has been written elsewhere. For me, there is one sound piece of advice which the film delivers (via the Oracle) and I know it will unite both housewives and hackers alike. "Prepare your cookies with love."

A Brand New Ending

Tomorrow night promises to be very exciting. We already have our tickets to the UK premiere of The Matrix Revolutions. The last film in the trilogy starring Keanu Reeves.

The film is being released using an unprecedented distribution method as it will be launched simultaneously at 6 a.m. in Los Angeles, 9 a.m. in New York, 2 p.m. in London, 5 p.m. in Moscow, 11 p.m. in Tokyo and at corresponding times in over 50 additional countries worldwide. Sadly we are not able to get along to the 2 p.m. showing as we all have to work, but we will be seeing the film before most of the USA population. Now that has got to be a first.

We went to the opening night of the previous edition, Matrix Reloaded, and many of the fans were in costume. The sight of many versions of Neo and Agent Smith all tucking into their Burger King meals in the "restaurant" next door was like some bizarre real-life incarnation of a scene from the movie. We expected slo-mo martial arts and gunfights to break out at any moment resulting in the rapid disintegration of the entire area to rubble. I will be going straight on from a meeting so I will be dressed in business suit and tie tomorrow, but the rest of the gang will be dressing in stylish black.

Mind the Gap

Well I finally managed to get an appointment with the dentist to have my filling replaced. Unfortunately it turned out not to be as simple as that.

The reason my filling fell out in the first place is because it was pushed out of place by one of my wisdom teeth which is still growing and will continue to do so as it has no opposing tooth on the lower jaw to bite against. Like ferrets, wisdom teeth do not stop bearing down until the teeth meet. With no lower tooth to butt-up against my top teeth will keep growing until I look like sabre-toothed tiger - probably in about 20 years time. So, drastic measures are called for.

In the short term the man in the white coat (no not Alec Guinness) has put a temporary filling in place to prevent further decay and I am now booked back in for early December when I will have my wisdom removed. I wonder if anyone will notice any difference?

Remarkable Shop Names

I really like it when retail establishments choose a really cool name for their business. As well as making the place more interesting, it shows that the owners have got a spark of imagination that will flow through to the way they deal with customers once you are inside.

I used to go to a barbers in north London called New Barnet. For those who are not UK readers, this is clever because not only is New Barnet a place in London, but Barnet is Cock-er-ney Rhyming Slang for Hair.

Covent Garden in London has for years been the home to Knutz, a shop full of joke items, some very rude indeed.

When travelling in South Africa a few years ago I came across a shop called Help My Krap. I am still not entirely sure what it means but I like the idea that they could be so honest about the quality of stuff they are selling.

This weekend a friend of mine sent me a photo of a new fast food restaurant in Edinburgh called bau.waus. Can you guess what they sell before clicking on the link? I think it is a brilliant name and deserves to be successful just for that bit of creativity alone.

If you have come across some equally strange, unique, or just downright clever names for sales emproria, please let me know. I would like to compile a global, online compendium.

A Churning Down Below

I have been suffering from a gastric complaint for the past few days following the accidental ingestion of some senescent yogurt. There is no delicate way to describe the symptoms I have endured, but it is not just the weather that has been wet and windy of late.

In an attempt to quell the turmoil I have been cutting out various foods. First to go was dairy products – not least because I just didn't have the appetite for them. Next I tried to cut out coffee, and then went fruit juice. Sometimes I felt better but never totally right. I was just considering stopping eating altogether when someone suggested I actually take some medicine and see if that will help.

Today I purchased some Gaviscon which so far seems to be doing the trick, but why does taking it have to be an unpleasant experience equivalent to swallowing a cup of aniseed flavoured phlegm?